UNILEVER has announced plans to slash around 1,500 jobs in a major organisational shake-up that bosses say will simplify its structure and allow the firm to focus on growth.

The FTSE-100 Marmite maker will axe around 15 per cent of senior management roles and five per cent of more junior management as it restructures the business to create five distinct business divisions.

The announcement comes after a difficult few weeks for boss Alan Jope which has seen the share price spiral and investors agitate for change.

The Financial Times revealed on Sunday that notorious activist investor Nelson Peltz had built a stake in Unilever via his firm Trian Partners, which recently oversaw a shake up at American consumer goods group Proctor & Gamble.

Jope said in a statement yesterday: "Our new organisational model has been developed over the last year and is designed to continue the step-up we are seeing in the performance of our business.

"Moving to five category-focused Business Groups will enable us to be more responsive to consumer and channel trends, with crystal-clear accountability for delivery."

He added that growth "remains our top priority" and that the organisational changes would "underpin our pursuit of this."

Unilever has made a number of changes to its top team as part of the plans, including appointing COO Nitin Paranjpe to the new role of chief transformation officer & chief people officer, and Matt Close to the role of President Ice Cream.

Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown said the move from Jope would help "soothe critical investors".

She said: "Instead of enlarging its cupboard of consumer staples, the focus is on clearing away layers in the existing business, in an attempt to boost profit margins.

"Scrutiny is ratcheting up, and there will be no shortage of fingers itching to check whether the dust really has been cleaned out of underperforming corners of the business."

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper